


Dastardly Tangerine Sweetdrops

by sunflowerwonder



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (Non-Graphic) Character Death, :(, Apocalypse, Candy Sharing, Good Times and Bad Times, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Sad Kissing, Skittles, Survival, non-graphic, terrible confessions, then really bad times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerwonder/pseuds/sunflowerwonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake likes to shoplift candy from long-abandoned gas stations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dastardly Tangerine Sweetdrops

**Author's Note:**

> Not as bad as the tags sound. I hope.

You're not one to pick up strays. Even before the apocalypse sent everything into a spiraling shitstorm you were hardly a warm and fuzzy person. Any sympathy you may or may not have possessed was granted immediately towards your brother; who's introverted nature had clashed with his extroverted profession to such an extent he'd often come home only to collapse on top of you and whine. He was the type of man worth extending empathy towards, and a rare exception to your heartlessness. You'd be lying if you said you didn't miss him.

Jake English is a stray by the very definition. An orphaned mutt of a teenaged boy you'd found in the middle of an abandoned Dallas suburb. With sunken green eyes he'd gazed at you from a sagging porch and snacked on the crumbs of a Pringles can as you trekked by with heavy footsteps. You'd given him a half salute as you ambled past, ignoring the nagging do-good notion in your heart to help a clearly struggling member of your own species. You had to look out for number one, after all.

You didn't make it ten yards before you turned back.

Jake became an eccentric sort of traveling companion. You liked him well enough, though. His once darkened eyes had brightened considerably behind his ever-crooked glasses—which had a screw loose and a cracked lens from an unlucky run in with another survivor—as he spent more time beside you. He's cheerful on most days, and at least quiet on others. He's shockingly kind for living in such tough conditions; charming in the most unnoticeable ways. You've made a habit of noticing them. You've made a habit of noticing a lot of him.

He's currently pouring skittles out of an empty cigarette packet. You're not exactly sure why, but you guess in the enigma that was Jake English's brain an old, bent, off-white cigarette package was a far superior carrying case for candy than—god forbid—the bags his sweets he liked to shoplift from long-abandoned gas stations actually came in. It was ironic, really. Which you could appreciate. A windworn apocalypse survivor reaching into his pocket with dirty and angst-shaking hands for a package of dusty smokes, only for the container to pour out dozens of bright rainbow candies. It brought a smile to your face. Jake brought a smile to your face.

"Yo, share the love a little, eh?" you say casually, poking your smoldering, semi-useless campfire with a stick and holding out your hand to him. You’ve set up camp around several fallen logs on the edge of a forest; fields and a city littering the distance in front of you.

Jake seems particularly okay this evening, and he's already diligently plucked the orange Skittles from the handful he's pulled out for himself tonight. He holds his hand over yours and uses a single finger to brush the few citrus sweets into your outstretched palm.

"Don't know how you stomach those teeth-searing orange ones, Strider. They're the devil incarnate," he grumbles, popping a green one and two reds into his mouth.

"I'm pretty sure this cruel world has better objects to warrant demonic likeness than orange flavored skittles, Jake," you reply with a laugh, placing a single candy on your tongue. You suck it slowly. Since you limited yourself to only the orange candies in Jake's stash, you had to make the lesser quantity last.

"Hmph. Demonic or not it doesn't make those dastardly tangerine sweetdrops any more stomachable." Jake grumbles, shoving half of his handful into his mouth in one go and chewing loudly. His lips smack with saliva and you quickly look into your own handful with a blush.

"Come on. They're not that bad." You slip another into your mouth.

"I just don't understand why you like them!" Jake laughs. "If there ever does come a day where I have even the slightest craving for orange Skittles, I swear it'll be my last."

"Mm. That's pretty extreme. Guess I've just got a flare for danger in my tastebuds," you joke.

"Hey! If anyone's tongue has an inkling for adventure it's mine!" Jake exclaims. 

You casually hold one of your Skittles up to Jake's mouth, a daring look on your face. Jake's face crinkles up in defiance. "Oh shove off. I'm not eating it."

"Your call, Mr. Adventure," You grin, tossing the candy up and catching it in your mouth.

Jake keeps a wary eye on your handful, but holds firm in his abstinence from the candies. You shove Jake playfully, and he snorts.

"It's okay, every adventurer has a weakness," you say. "Like snakes. Or orange skittles."

Jake rolls his eyes at you but doesn't retort. 

-

Your small little camp falls into a soothing silence for a while, and you happily suck on your candy while listening to Jake whittle away on a stick with a pocket knife. Eventually, you find yourself start rapping, whispering nonsensical, verbose metaphors underneath your breath. At which you're stricken with the sudden realization that amidst the bullshit of the apocalypse, you're actually happy. Jake is humming beside you, and your heart is swelling with the growing silly expression on his face from concentration. You love his company more than you should.

At some point you figure the soup you placed near your lukewarm ashes of a campfire has probably been sufficiently warmed, and you pick it up and take a sip. It's not gourmet, but it gets the job done. You down some more with hungry swallows before moving to offer Jake some. He breaks the silence first.

"Do you fancy me?" he asks out of nowhere.

"What?" you reply, slurping another quick gulp of the unidentifiable soup and holding the can out to him.

He takes the can but only holds it close.

"Fancy. Romantically," he repeats. He's put his woodworking down, his face suddenly downcast.

"I know what fancy means in this context."

You stare at each other within the quiet and he looks at you with furrowed eyebrows and an accusing gaze. You feel like you're being wrongly accused of a crime. You look at him with an expression of confusion, and shrug casually.

"Do you or do you not have a sexual interest in me?" he states in the most serious voice you've ever heard come out of his mouth.

You still. That's a loaded question. You're not sure sexual interests are things that should be possessed during an apocalypse in the first place. You like Jake, yeah. Maybe you have fantasized about him a little. It's not your fault the apocalypse broke out before you ever got a proper boyfriend. Your daydreams were never enough to warrant acting on any impulses, however. You're in a contaminated zone not a romcom.

You cough. And tell the truth.

"Sexual interest is a little strong," you state. "I prefer the more infantilized term of 'crush,' thank you."

"So you _do_ fancy me!" he yells. His voice is pained, almost hurt. 

"Yes?" you reply.

He looks sickened.

"What's brought this on?" you ask. You're cautious, and a little scared. This is not a conversation you ever really planned on having with Jake.

"I... We were talking—you were _flirting_ —"

"I wasn't flirting, English," you say with a sharp laugh.

"You were!"

"I was just chatting with you. Jesus."

He stands up, and the soup falls abruptly from his lap to the ground. Sweet, precious, sustenance. You're totally giving him shit about wasting food when he calms down.

"You _like_ me!"

"Yes, I think you're cute. Is that a problem? I'm not going to act on it. My main goal is currently survival, shockingly enough." You're staying relatively nonchalant. No need to elevate anything.

"You're gay," he whispers. It's with such disbelief it sounds like he's genuinely thinking aloud.

You scoff at him. "What gave me away, the fact that the only friends I've told you I possess have been girls or the fifteen minute metaphor about Channing Tatum's ass."

"You look at me," he states.

"Huh?"

"You look at me strange. That's how I knew." Hypocritically, he's looking at you strange when he says it. He's also shaking, like a scared dog about to bolt. You find yourself internally starting to panic, but slowly raise your hands in a defenseless display, and gaze at him worriedly.

You swallow. "Look, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable—"

"Well you did!" he gasps out. "You are!"

"I can't help that I have a crush on you, okay? It's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal!" he yells. "You're a—you're gay."

Honestly you're completely caught off guard.

"I never asked for your opinion on my sexuality," you deadpan. "I think politics are all a bit moot considering the current situation."

"How do I know you aren't aiming to take advantage of me?!" His voice is uncontrolled, exasperated, frantic. "Is that why you saved my sorry ass? Just so you could pull the sheep skin over on me?"

"Jake, calm down—"

"You're a creep! A right darn creep and I thought—I thought for just one second I'd actually found a friend—For just futzing once I found a true goddamn companion and—"

"I am your friend!" you spit out. "I am your fucking friend. I'm sorry, okay?"

He's collecting his items.

"Jake, don't go," you sigh, holding your head.

His fingers are shaking in violent rhythms as he stuffs his few precious belongings into his backpack.

"No. No, no. I need to go, Strider. I need to go and think. I need to get away, god, I need away from you."

"Jake, please, it's dangerous—"

"Do not manipulate me into staying!" he practically screams out. You hope there isn't anyone or anything nearby to hear him. "You always talk me into everything!"

"I'm not!" you exclaim. "I... I do not. I fucking care about you! Is that such a goddamn crime?"

Jake's eyes are wide, like a cornered deer.

"I care about you. Please don't go."

Jake kisses you for a solid and bizarre three-point-five-seven seconds.

Oh. 

_Oh._

When Jake pulls back he's sobbing.

"I can't," he breathes out.

"I never asked you to do anything," you state.

He kisses you again. It's frantic and angry and when he's done he shoves you away from him.

"I can't!" He yells directly at you. He runs a quivering hand through his hair and shrugs his bag over his shoulder. His next exclamation is not much more than a desperate whisper. A shaky, terrified sound in the growing dusk. "You're so lovely but I can't..."

"Jake," you say, voice firm but as nonaggressive as you can make it. "...Are you gay?"

He snarls at you; his glare piercing.

"Fuck off," he heaves. "I'm not— I'm not..."

"Jake, it's okay. It's alright if you like guys, okay? You still don't have to like me. You don't have to do anything—"

"You're despicable, Dirk Strider."

He starts off towards nowhere. Tears in his eyes and bag over his shoulder he stomps towards the fields to the east of your camp. You want to stop him but you're angry. You've done everything for him. Given him food and protection. You've kept his ass alive.

You look down to see he's left his package of Skittles.

"Hey Jake."

He stalls and looks back at you, venom ready to fall from his tongue. You close the lid and toss the container at him without thinking, anger and irony flooding your veins. He catches it on instinct.

"Taste the fuckin' rainbow."

-

About four miles of walking alone the next morning is all it takes for you to turn back. You're worried about him. He was accomplished in nature survival but his fighting skills had been lacking beyond the few precious bullets he'd possessed when you’d found him that had ran out soon enough. He could easily be overpowered by another desperate survivor. You've got a sick pit of a feeling in your stomach. He'd brutally called you out and you're still fucking worried about him.

It's high noon by the time you reach your old campsite. It takes you 30 minutes more to locate his footprints and head in that direction. You decide not to give a fuck about stamina and run. You're a sprinter by nature, speed your biggest asset in your survival. Booking it down the path is exhilarating, and every pant of breath is punctuated by the same word pounding in your head.

Jake. Jake. Jake.

You don't even feel tired.

For several more hours you hike through fields and past the occasional odd house. The sun begins its descent, but the thought of breaking camp was far from your mind. You blindly tromp alongside Jake's footprints, clinging to them like a strand of hope. You hope he's okay. God, you hope he's okay—

You find him face up on the ground, the hazy image of a city skyline twenty odd miles away in the distance. His angelic features are illuminated by the setting sun. A fresh cut on his cheek that looks like it was from a steady punch mars his tanned skin. He's naked except for boxers. His eyes are glassy and skyward.

Jake English is dead.

A breeze whistles past you, ruffling the grass beside Jake's head. His expression is hollow, as if in its last moments it was expecting its own fate. A trickle of blood seems to be leaking out of the back of his head but you don't look at it.

His bags and clothes are gone, which means you highly doubt this was the work of a random, violent animal. This was the work of another survivor—another human. Some sick bastard thought his life was superior to another human's. Someone thought they were better than Jake fucking English.

You allow the grief to sink into your stomach.

Red, purple, yellow, and green dots are scattered across the ground, Jake's Skittles apparently worthless to his murderer, who was probably looking for a smoke. Jake's glasses lie among them, shattered entirely now. You try and ignore the tear streams still drying on Jake's graying face.

"Oh, Jake. Fuck," you whisper, kneeling down to him. "Jake."

You run a hand across his round cheeks and into his hair, combing it away from his eyes using your calloused fingers. With gentle, light touches you slip his eyelids down, his thick eyelashes slowly curtaining his unfocused green eyes.

"Jake," you murmur. Your vision is getting watery.

His murderer could still be nearby. You need to move. You are running low on fresh water and attractive companions and you need to get booking towards somewhere. Anywhere. Anyplace but here.

You kiss him lightly, his lips rubbery and lifeless, but don't allow yourself to let out the sob that's overwhelming your chest.

Jake's mouth tastes like death and the lingering tang of orange skittles.


End file.
